Britain faces an era of food shortages and the public may be forced to grow
vegetables to survive, the government has suggested.

David Heath, the agriculture minister, revived the memory of the Second World War government campaign that urged the public to “dig for victory”, as raised the prospect of “digging for survival” in future.

Britain wrongly assumed that it would be possible to import all the food the country needed from abroad, he said, as experts warned that food prices would rise dramatically if the supermarket supply suffered.

“With an increasing population, increasing demand not just in this country but across the world, we are going to have to increase food production,” Mr Heath said.

“We made a huge mistake a few years ago when the idea got around that we didn’t need to produce in the agricultural sector any more, that we would be able to buy our way through whatever was necessary to feed the country.”

The minister added: “Once we used to ‘dig for victory’. There may come a time soon when we need to ‘dig for survival’.”

Mr Heath, the Liberal Democrat MP for Somerton and Frome, told The Daily Telegraph that the prospect of the public “digging for survival” was “not overstating it by a lot”.

“We need to be able to produce enough to deal with the requirements in this country. Food security is going to be an issue of increasing relevance.

“There is nothing that provides more classical insecurity across the world than not being able to feed populations adequately so we need to be aware of that and we need to respond to it.”

Britain imports 40 per cent of all food consumed and the proportion is rising.

The threat to British food supplies is potentially “disastrous”, according to the Global Food Security programme, which is run by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, and backed by the government.

The UK is not “self sufficient” and food prices can rise dramatically - as they did by 30 per cent in 2008 - as a result of fluctuations in the global market and changes in the environment, the organisation said.

Supermarket shelves appear permanently well-stocked but the supply chain is also “sensitive”.

Exotic diseases such as bluetongue in sheep and African swine fever threaten to devastate livestock farming, researchers at the programme have warned.

If bluetongue struck with another disease - one affecting wheat, for example, the combined effects which would be manageable individually “could be disastrous”.

Mr Heath said he believed that genetically modified crops (GM) would have a potentially significant role in meeting food needs in future, by developing higher yielding varieties and crops that require less intensive inputs.

The government is planning to lobby other European Union countries to lift current restrictions on the use of GM technology, he added.

“I think we need to move the EU forward on this because at the moment that is a significant blockage to areas where we have real expertise,” he said.

Children should be taught about the origins of the food on their plate and should be able to “get their hands dirty and share in growing vegetables” at school and at home, he added.

The minister said it was “a concern” that schools failed to encourage more pupils to consider careers in food and farming.

A government review has been launched to draw up plans to attract more skilled recruits into agriculture.

:: The Government announced a review into the horsemeat scandal to restore consumers' confidence in the food they buy.

The review will examine how vulnerable the food chain is to fraud and will consider whether further measures are required to strengthen the regulation of businesses.

The move follows disclosres that beef products sold in supermarkets and served in schools and hospitals contained horsemeat.